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Central Valley Youth Soccer League (CVYSL) has a proud tradition of producing some of the most successful teams in Northern California. In keeping with that tradition, CVYSL partnered their competitive teams with the San Jose Earthquakes.

Through the partnership, CVYSL will become the official club team of the Earthquakes. Even though the teams are still with CVYSL each of their teams will be outfitted with Earthquakes gear and will fall under the club’s Academy umbrella

All the CVYSL teams have changed their names to reflect being a partner with the San Jose Earthquakes program.

However, since the four 99 girls competitive teams and two of the four 98 boys competitive teams were so close to aging out, they elected to continue playing solely as CVYSL teams.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The San Jose Earthquakes announced today that Paul Holocher, current Earthquakes Development Academy U-18 and U-16 head coach, will take over as director of player development for the Earthquakes Youth Club while continuing his coaching responsibilities with the Quakes academy teams. Academy staff members Mario Fernandez and Eder Quintanilla will assist Holocher in running the program. Ian Russell is stepping down as the technical director of the youth club.

“I am looking forward to working with the youth club and especially organizing the club in a way that will improve the player development,” said Holocher. “For me, successful youth soccer development goes well beyond simply winning a soccer game. Our goal is to come together as a team of coaches who can look at the game in a similar way and teach the game with consistency.”

Holocher joined the Earthquakes on July 27, 2015 as head coach of the U18 academy head coach after previously serving as the head coach for the Cal Poly Mustangs from 2006-13. Prior to joining Cal Poly, Holocher was the head coach at UC Santa Cruz for seven seasons from 1999-2005.While at UC Santa Cruz, he was also the Director of Coaching for the Santa Cruz County Youth Soccer League (SCCYSL), which had more than 5,000 youth players.

Russell, who is joining the technical staff of the Earthquakes’ USL affiliate Reno 1868 FC as the head coach, ran the youth club for the past seven years. During this time, Russell helped grow the program to include over 75 teams.